The present system of printing sales receipts employs a printable paper media which is printed by a cash register or other business machine using an inkjet, thermal or ribbon printer. The printed receipt is handed to the customer and/or in many cases is placed in the shopping bag with the purchased products. An average cash register tape is 3" in width and 190' in length and the roll is approximately 3" in diameter. Many retail stores place the customer's purchase in a plastic bag and more and more stores are becoming involved with the effort to collect and recycle those bags. A major problem in the recycling of the plastic bag material is the paper receipt left in many of the returned bags.
The industry that recycles the present plastic shopping bags most often shreds them and re-extrudes them into pellets to be used alone or mixed with virgin plastic material to make thick film for disposable trash bags and the like. The paper fiber created by the paper receipts is a continuing problem for the recyclers since it clogs up the screens in the extruder and causes holes to form in the film-making process.
An alternative means for printing receipts is exemplified by the systems for printing receipts at gas stations where a thermal printing process is employed. There is also a need to provide longer rolls of printable material for thermal printers to reduce costs and reduce the frequency that a roll must be changed.
The general concept of employing a thermoplastic material for the fabrication of sales receipts is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,229,218 (Dobreski). However, as far as applicant is aware, no commercially viable product has been developed using this concept. The reasons for this are that the person of skill in the art must take a significant number of additional steps beyond the teachings of the Dobreski patent in order to arrive at a commercially viable product. For example, the Dobreski patent does not provide sufficient details to select a specific thermoplastic material which is economical, of sufficient strength and which can be reliably fabricated into a printable film. Thus, the present inventors have surprisingly found that a very simple, economical combination can be used in order to provide a commercially viable sales receipt. These and other objects of the present invention will be apparent from the summary and detailed descriptions which follow.